Among the Ashes
by FanFreak2002
Summary: A distorted crossover with Drake and Josh it is flashing between past and present showing sequences in the life of Gabriella Montez the facts may not be straight but it is my story. Very graphic, sexual and violently. REviews are like oxygen to me people.
1. Lithium

The thunder outside was rolling off in the distance, the windows were slightly open in a wide-ranged estate. Causing the damp air to flow in and send shivers up a girl's spine. The girl had long black hair, piercing chocolate eyes, and her complexion waved the fact that she was Hispanic. Everything about her seemed perfect. The only distinct flaw about her at the moment was that she was covered in blood.

_Lithium don'__t want to lock me up inside__. Lithium __I want to stay in love with my sorrow. Don't want to forget how it feels without lithium. Oh, but God, I want to let it go._

With the remains of her consciousness she was sure it belonged to her alone. She strived to crawl across the floor though the burning in her broken bones and various gashes told her otherwise. She finally got to her destination, a blonde girl of her own age, her stepsister. "Sharp?" her voice was hoarse, and she knew it had to do with the small incision in her throat. "Sharpay please." No answer, there wasn't enough time for this. They would be back any minute, she could feel a light pulse coming from her sister's neck, and she shimmied her way back to the edge of the bed where her emergency cell phone was.

_Come to bed, don't make me sleep alone. Couldn't hide the emptiness, you let it show. __Never wanted it to be so cold.__ Just didn't drink enough to say you love me._

It rang twice before she heard someone on the other end. "What is your emergency?" The talking caught up with her, blood spilling inward to her throat making her choke on her words. "Ma'am? Sir? What is the problem?" "Help." It gurgled making small bubbles of ruby to slip past her lips. She was going to pass out, she could feel it coming. "Ma'am? You're on a cell phone? Is that correct?" She couldn't speak any further and she was slowly drifting off. Without missing a beat the operator went on. "I have a GPS on it the authorities will be there shortly, try to keep me on the line." She made it back to her sister clutching her small frame to herself. Trying to remember that the day before they were laughing and knowing how perfect their lives were. A tear leaked out of her eye as she choked on a sob.

_Don't want to lay me down this time. Drown my will to fly. Here in the darkness I know myself. __Can't break free __til__ I let it go.__ Let me go._

It was too much and her stomach hit bare bottom as she heard a thumping coming up the stairwell. She tried to slow her breathing to make it look as if she were dead. One of the men came in and threw something on the floor. Another person? Not just a person but a man she had grown with and loved with all her heart. Dark mouse brown hair, bluest of eyes, and a smile that could make the cruelest of hearts swoon away. Only now his eyes were glazed and vacant. She sobbed trying to reach out to him. The engagement ring glistening like a tear on her finger. "Troy?" She didn't care anymore. If they could kill someone who wasn't even involved with any of this she knew full and well that they were no other survivors. What's the point life was leaking through her fingers. The perfection was gone thanks to her mother. Her own mother. Rage was encased in her heart, and she was begging for death.

_Darling I forgive you after all, anything is better than to be alone. In the end I guess I had to fall. Always find my way among the ashes. _

The man came back through the door, and grasped her by the top of the scalp. "The cops are here and you're the only one left." He stabbed her neck again cutting the artery he had missed by inches last time. She could she red outside the windows. Though it could've been the blood rushing into her eye sockets. She heard yelling as she slipped and hit the floor.


	2. Somehow

A 1,000 miles away Walter Nichols was worried. It wasn't odd that his best friend would call him, he heard from him at least once a day. But to have an unknown stranger call in concern for him was to be concerned for. His wife would pat his arm every so often, he supposed to bring him back to reality and not swerve off the road. His daughter was away at camp with her friend Janie. His two eldest were in the back seat of the SUV, playing cards for FlutterNutters and Mountain Fizz. They were still grounded for jumping out of a helicopter nearly bankrupting Walter in the process. He didn't need them trying to sneak out and do God knows what so he dragged them along. Walter was taking deep breaths as Josh spoke up, "I wonder what's up with Uncle Gene?" Nobody answered, Walter wanted to and tried to reach his son mentally. He was sure it didn't work. He wanted to cry, but he remembered being five his father's stern face looking into his, "Men never cry." Why is it in moments of despair you remember little things from your past?

_They stare at the moon, rhythm out of tune. __Memories of the past at the bottom of a glass.__Did they tie you down? Did you make a sound? _

The hospital, Walter could never figure out why Josh was afraid of them, until now. To know someone you care about to be in so much danger. It was frightful, and devastating. Drake tried to turn the channel on the emergency room television as Walter walked to the information desk. "I got a call here for a Gene Montez." His voice was a whisper as if he had a secret, as though he didn't want to know himself. The young lady was trying to text message at a new record speed, and was annoyed to put down her cell. She dialed a few numbers and broadcasted over the intercom. Walter couldn't hear it, it blared in his ears like flies buzzing. An older gentleman walked from the locked doors approaching slowly to the Parker-Nichols. "Mr. Nichols?" Walter nodded. "Come with me, the rest should stay behind." Walter was about to argue when he felt the cool touch of his wife's hand. He kissed her on the cheek, understanding her silent request, and followed the doctor into the back.

_You remember his old boots, and the shotgun that he shoots. And all that you could take lies at the bottom of a lake. _

It seemed like the elevator took forever though they only went one floor down. A sign captured his attention, 'Morgue.' He slammed himself against the wall, willing himself not to go any further. "He's dead?" The doctor nodded solemnly and turned away from him. "Not just him though Mr. Nichols. It was a massacre. None survived except one of the girls. Walter's breath hitched, one of the girls? Only one? Flashes of his life flashed before him. His father leaving at nine and Gene telling him it would be okay that they were here for each other a slight punch on the arm, and everything be alright again in a split second. Josh and Gabriella playing in the park as the two men reminenced in days past, before everything went to hell. How Gene was there for him the same way he was with his father when Marie Ann died. Now he was gone, and who would comfort him this time? He had never gotten to say goodbye and he never would. It hurt. Who could be such a monster to even think about doing this? "Do the police have any suspects?" "They have the culprits in custody." "Who is it?" "I believe the leader of it was a woman named Isabel Montez."

_So lift your cig and drag as you figure out a plan, to hide it all away. How could she ever love this man?_

Walter stood in astonishment. Isa? Why? Because of the divorce? Eight years ago and she decides to get even now, what sense is that? Walter had to help identify them, there were no immediate family members to claim them. Though the doctor reassured him there was plenty of money to pay for the burials. The bodies were mutilated it was hard to recognize them. It was even harder because he hadn't seen the girl since Gene moved across the country. Bridgette, Sharpay, and Gene. There was also a young man he didn't know under the throngs of blankets. "Don't worry, his parents have already identified him." Why couldn't they identify the others? They had to know each other. But seeing their son there cold and lifeless he could understand why they didn't want to. Lives cut too short. He remembered, "Nick? He's alive?" "Mr. Nichols who's Nick?" "Nicholas Montez, the last I heard he was in England, but he's okay there's no mass murder on all of them are there?" "No, I had no idea, I'll call the station to see, and have him contacted." The doctor nodded to one of the nurses, "See him to room 302-D please." She nodded eagerly maybe at last being helpful. Walter followed her to the elevator each ding giving him a migraine throb. Nick was okay, as soon as he turned 18 he hightailed it back to England where he met "the love of his life" Walter and Gene were just discussing it three days ago. The nurse tugged his arm hurrying him before the doors closed. The ICU it smelt of chlorophorm and ammonia. She was covered in tubes and plugs making Walter's stomach churn. The nurse offered him scrubs to see her, though she was still very unconscious. He refused this wasn't real for either of them at the moment.


	3. Confessions of a Broken Heart

When Isabel and Gene Montez split apart Isabel had gotten sole custody of their son Nicholas Emmanuel Montez and their daughter Gabriella Celeste Montez. It was okay for a bit of time. No one knew that Ms. Montez was starting to develop a mild case of schizophrenia. Subtly Gabriella would be chewed out and several hours later her mother would then apologize. Telling her daughter she never meant the things she said when she got like that.

_I wait for the postman to bring me a __letter,__ I wait for the good Lord to make me feel better._

Two years later, when Gabriella turned six, she had gotten a letter from her father. It said how sorry he was for not being more involved in her life. But things have changed now. His business was settled down, and he had also gotten remarried. He wanted Gabriella to play more of a role in the new family, and she briefly wondered if her brother Nick knew about any of this. But she realized that it was nearly impossible to know anything when you were locked up in a boarding school halfway around the world. Her father also said that he was sure that her and her mother's life was as fulfilled as his had become. And that hurt her, because it hadn't been. Life had taken a more grave toll on her. Her mother's yelling had intensified, and in her bouts of rage she would strike out on her daughter. Soon the conflicts became more and more frequent and it was becoming too much to take. Even her best friend Josh Nichols was beginning to suspect something. The bruises were hard to hide, and Josh would point out, offering to treat them with his emergency first aid kit. It was the only time she could laugh.

_I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, a family in crisis that only grows older._

Gabriella watched enough television to know the severity of her situation. And as a last resort she sent a S.O.S. letter to her father and his new family. Hoping for the best. It took less than a day for DHS to come to take Gabriella away, and her mother in handcuffs from the evidence on the child's body. The social workers allowed her to take only the things that she treasured most with her. She wondered if her father refused to take her as she sat in the cold lobby of a group home. She wouldn't go back there. People could die back there. The sky outside told her it would be so because it was an overclouded gray. She felt like a criminal as she left her old life behind. No longer Gabriella, but as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly she became Celeste unless otherwise noted.

_Daughter to father, these are the confessions of a broken heart._


End file.
